RALPH & THE RELUCTANT BRIDE

Chris Dunham’s post over on The Genealogue about the
upcoming book “The Naked Quaker” by Diane Rapaport
reminded me of a story about a divorce that might or might
not be among those in the book:


In June 1682, a twenty five year old man named Ralph found
himself being divorced by his young wife Katharine, who stated
words to the effect that she’d rather be dead than live with him.
She sued on grounds of her husband’s insufficiency to consummate
their marriage.


Ralph for his part did what any man in 17th century Salem Ma.
might do when faced with such an embarrassing situation: he
claimed that it had to be witchcraft. Not exactly original, and
highly ineffective in the light of the character witnesses Katherine
called to testify in her behalf.



It must have been the talk of the town. Both husband and wife
were given physical examinations, Katherine by a panel of
“goodwives” and Ralph by two men(one of them a chirurgeon)
appointed by the Court. Based on their reports the Court granted
Katherine her divorce and ordered she be allowed to take
whatever clothes and property that she had brought with her into
marriage.


All of this might have been lost in the mists of time except that
there was a court record of the proceedings and several centuries
later the case was cited in articles and a book about women in
Puritan society. I’ve not been able to read any of them in their
entirety but what I have read makes no mention of what
happened after. So in the interest of fairness to Ralph, here’s the
rest of it:

Ralph remained single for nearly 9 years but in August of 1691 he
wed Martha Rowlandson. The marriage lasted nearly 20 years
before her death.


They had 7 children


We don’t know what happened to Katherine after her divorce
from Ralph, There is no record of her maiden name. Hopefully
she too remarried and with a man she loved and who gave her
children of her own.


We’ll never know the exact reason why the marriage of my
ancestor Ralph Ellingwood and his first wife Katherine ended so
scandalously. Possibly it was an arranged match between a man
and a deeply unhappy younger bride. Possibly Ralph was not the
perfect husband and possessed bad manners and lousy personal
hygiene. Perhaps there just wasn't any...spark.

Perhaps he could have used a talk with Dr. Phil, but alas, there
was no Dr. Phil on 17th century Salem.


But obviously Ralph felt he had a point to prove to all of Salem,
and judging by the 7 children he fathered, I guess he did it.


He wasn’t “insufficient”!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 15

I spent part of the afternoon on the Great July Organize Your
Genealogy Files project. I’d been so wrapped up first in the John
Ames file and then Aunt Dot’s Memories transcriptions that I
hadn’t made very much headway. But I had bought a denim sort
of material expandable file case a week ago to move some of my
files into and today was the day I got that done. These are the
original family sheets Aunt Dot sent us years ago that have been
kept in several manila file folders for years now. While they were
in order most of the time, they frequently would get shuffled
around when I was going through them looking for something.
They certainly look better in the case filed alphabetically by
family name.


I was also looking for some links to some of the places Dot
mentioned in her memories and found one for Gould Academy. I
glanced at the history page and I think either Mr. Hanscom or
Mr. Ireland was the headmaster who finally asked her about my
Dad. I couldn’t find any suitable sites for Wilson’s Mills or the
Azicohos(or Aziscoos) Dam so I’ll have to wait until later for that.


I’ll get back to the John Ames files again in the next few posts.

FOUR GENERATIONS

I'm not certain which one of my cousins Aunt Dot is holding in
this photo, but from left to right, this is my grandfather Floyd E.
West Sr., Aunt Dot and child, and my great grandfather Philip
Jonathan (P.J.) West. The photo must have been taken in the
late forties or early fifties. P. J. passed away in 1954 at 86.

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES5

This is the final installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's thirteen handwritten pages of memories of her and my
Dad's childhood growing up in Oxford County, Maine during
the Depression years. This one shows ..well..a bit of a rebel
strain in them both. Man, if I'd known about this when I was
growing up, I'd have never let Dad live it down!


Up until now I've transcribed everything as written but for
this blog post I've edited two words(the reason should be
self explanatory when you see them) and the left out the
first and middle name of Dad's grade school teacher. My
transcribed copy in my records is unedited.


Our social life was rather sparce. We always looked forward to
the Young Peoples Meetings. It was a group that got together
once a week at a different home each time. We had a short
prayer meeting, played games and had refreshments. Our
minister, Rev. John G. Mantor picked us up and brought us
home each time.

Bud was in the Boy Scouts for several years. Rev. Mantor was
the Scout Master. Bud learned to swim really well during that
time.


Fun at School--


Our grade school was only 2 rooms and all twelve grades were
taught by two teachers. The state changed the requirements
for high school graduates when Bud was in the eighth grade so
he was off to Gould Academy in the fall. Hazel had quit school
during the fall of her junior year but thought it would be great to
go to boarding school so she enrolled as a junior. Guess it wasn’t
that great for her because she quit GA in December and never
went back.


Bud gave folks at Gould a hard time. He wasn’t in to rules and
regulations and did some fancy bending of the rules. He was
caught smoking and was punished. He went into the pool hall
and was suspended for two weeks. Did another stint at home
but I don’t remember what for. After all that-in his junior year-
he came down with the mumps and was sent home again. When
he applied in the fall he was turned down so he didn’t graduate.
-The next year he joined the Army Air Force. During my senior
year I roomed in the headmaster’s home. During the whole 4
years he had never once mentioned Bud to me. It did my heart
good when he asked me one day- that last Spring- what had
happened to my brother. I was so proud I got real brave, for me,
and said, “Oh, he is attending Iowa State Teacher’s College". I
didn‘t bother to mention that the Air Force sent him there to
train for some sort of radio communication.


Back to Grade School


Basically we had some very nice teachers. Only remember one
that none of us liked and of course she was the one who stayed
for three years. Her name was * * Ritchie. One time the boys in
Bud’s class (there were 5 of them) each had to sing a solo -same
song- but each one had to stand in front of the room and sing-
The song went-

In the prison cell I sit
Thinking Mother dear of you-

When it was Bud’s turn he sang- (he was in the 6th or 7th grade)

In the prison cell I sit
With my britches all be sh*t

Miss Ritchie grabbed him -threw him down in his seat and
grabbing him by the ears- slam, slam, slam, his head kept
hitting the desk. Guess she was unhappy with him!


Another time- (I’m in 3rd or 4th grade) I was given an English
paper to write. I was to copy it from a book on the desk behind
me. I kept writing and not looking at the book. She finally
asked what I was doing. I told her doing my lesson. When she
came to look at it I crumpled the paper-ran down front and put
the paper in the bottom of the waste basket. She dumped
everything oh her desk and smoothed out my paper. It said
(about 5 times)

Miss Ritchie is an old b*tchie.


Bud worked several places during the summers-
He worked at road construction when the road below the dam
that went across the river was built.

He worked in the woods with Pop- cutting logs for lumber at
the mill and cutting, loading, and hauling pulp to be pushed into
the river to go to the Berlin paper mills.

There was farming to do for a neighbor so we would have use
of his pasture and hay for our cows.

Also worked at the saw mill.

Guess that is all I remember for now. Sorry this is so messy.

Love to you,
Aunt Dot.

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES4

This is the fourth installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's memories of her and my father Bud growing up in Oxford
County, Maine in the 1920's and `30's.

I knew Dad had shot himself in the foot in his early teens but he
never gave us the real story of how it happened. I do recall seeing
a small round scar on his foot when he happened to be barefoot.



Bud loved to fly fish. We would go down to the river where there
was a great fishing spot at the foot of the old sluice that used to
be used to shoot logs over the dam and down the river. This was
about a mile down river from the dam. The water ran so swift
that it made a roaring noise not unlike the ocean waves coming
onto a rocky shoreline. We really enjoyed those trout.



Bud never left me out when his friends came to play ball. I could
neither catch a ball nor throw it where I wanted it to go. As for
batting, I always swung at the ball but never hit it. Never-the-
less I was never left out of his games and his friends knew better
than to make anything other than encouraging comments.



"The 22 rifle that Bud had was one he bought from a friend-Pop
paid half on it and said that half was mine. We were never
allowed to take the gun out except to target shoot at the corner
of the house. We had set some traps on the mountain behind
the house and wanted to take the 22 when we went to tend to
them. We were told NO! So I went in a back room and stood the
gun out the window. When we left we sort of passed that way
and took it along. When we got to the first trap there was a
skunk in it, Bud loaded the rifle and shot it, then he loaded it
again and stood the barrel on the toe of his sneaker to wait and
see if he needed a second shot. I told him he shouldn’t hold it
that way & he said it was OK because the safety was on. A few
minutes later some chips flew up and hit me and he had shot
himself in thru the foot. He said we needed to hurry home.
The ground was rough and I was winded and lagged behind.
I told him to hurry on as I knew the way. He wouldn’t leave me
behind so I just had to hurry faster. When we got home I ran to
the nearest neighbor to phone for Pop to come home. He got
the gunshot dressed and the doctor came every day and pushed
a swab with iodine on it all the way throu his foot. Bet that felt
good."

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES3

This is the third in a series of posts that are word for word
transcriptions of 13 hand written pages given to me by my
Dad's sister Dorothy. They are her memories of their childhood
growing up in the Depression era in Oxford County, Maine.


This section deals mostly with Pop...my grandfather Floyd E.
West, Sr. and what jobs he worked at.







"Pop was always afraid of the water-afraid of drowning or of
some of us lost to it.

He had a tiny hut at Beaver Brook- across the lake from where
we were living. He tended traps there all winter crossing the
lake on snowshoes and carrying a pick-pole. When ice started
breaking up in the spring it was pretty scary watching him
leave with his heavy pack sack strapped to his back. He would
step onto a large chunk of ice and shove with his pick-pole until
he got to another chunk big enough to hold him-then step onto
it-or push the chunk out of the way and stay on the one he was
floating on. I always wondered if and when he would come back.
He was gone several days and I used to be afraid the ice would
be all gone when he was ready to return.



When Flossie was born Mother went to Bethel and stayed for
two weeks. She had made new dresses for Hazel and me and I
can still rember those dresses hanging up high on the wall. They
were orange with white daisies with bright blue centers.



While Mother was gone Pop took us out to the dam every day.
Bud & Hazel were allowed to go to the house to play with
cousins Lee and Leita but since Aunt Mabel had a girl (Ruth),
younger than me, he thought she shouldn’t have to watch two
little ones. He always took me to the longshop where he was
building a motorboat for Clarence. I took my naps in the boat
he was working on. The finished boat was named the Kiko.
The last time I saw the Kiko was about 1959/60. It was no
longer the beauty it had been.



Pop had a 9 passenger green buick, convertible, touring car.
The only time I remember riding in it was when we went to
Bethel to get mother. in the late 1930’s Pop cut that car in half
and made a farm tractor out of it. The jitter-bug was all the
rage at that time. There wasn’t money for tractors and many
people were converting old cars to use in the fields. The back
tires were big truck tires.


Among other jobs -Pop was a guide for the fishermen who
came from the big city’s and didn’t know where to catch
anything. Most of the men in town were guides. Besides
knowing where to fish - the guides did the cooking and
entertaining of these guests. Story telling was a great asset.
These men could string out some pretty outlandish yarns.


We moved into the Will Hart place when Flossie was a year
old- 1931. There was a big old barn in the field close by. The
owner had a fishing lodge where he floated his 2 cows to
every summer. In winter we kept the cows in his barn- so had
milk & butter from June to Labor Day. Bud & I loved to climb
in the loft and pitch hay onto the barn floor then jump down
into it."

A DEEP BREATH

Phew, time for a breather.

Since coming home from the wedding I’ve been a busy genealogy
beaver. I sent out copies of the John Ames file to my cousin Diana
in Ohio and didn’t realize I was flooding her email box! So it took
several tries to straighten that out.

I spent a good part of Saturday night trying to send some pictures
to my Aunt Emily, her daughter Winnie and Winnie’s husband
David since the email address I have for them was incorrect. I
think that’s been straightened out as well since the last attempt
hasn’t bounced back at me since Sunday morning. Either that
or some stranger is enjoying old wedding photos!

And then of course I’ve been transcribing the material Aunt Dot
gave me which is a process of scanning the page and then typing
…then stopping to reread again what she wrote because so much
of this is fascinating to find out about Dad. (Well for me at least!
Hopefully I’m not boring those who read this blog with all this
stuff I’ve posted lately.)

So I took a break to catch up on the latest Carnival of Genealogy
which is full of great posts about surnames. And there’s those
new free World Vital Records databases Randy mentioned in a
post on Genea-Musings I want to look into.

But for the moment, I think I’ll call it a night!

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES2

This is the second segment of my transcription of the 13 page
handwritten memories of my Aunt Dot on her and my Dad's
childhood.



"Pop" is my grandfather Floyd Earl West Sr. and "Mother"
is my grandmother Cora Berthella Barker. Hazel was my
Dad's older sister, and Flossie the youungest. "Uncle
Clarence" and "Aunt Mable" were my grand uncle Clarence
West and his wife. Uncle Clarence was the caretaker for over
fifty years at the Aziscoos Dam.


I'd heard the story about the geese from Dad when I was a kid
but I never knew the story of how he came to be called Bud nor
that he had been called "Pudge" in high school.



And I am quite certain he'd never have told us about setting the
bed on fire!



"My brother, Floyd Earl West, Jr. was probably never called by
his sir name. Hazel was taught to call him brother and it came
out budda- hence the nickname Bud. In high school at Gould
Academy, he was known as Pudge and when his class mates
ask about him to this day- -he is still Pudge!


Bud always took good care of me---



When we lived on the lake shore Hazel was in grade school and
had walk out to the dam to get on the bus. Mother often went
to meet the bus and walk Hazel home. If she got to talking with
Aunt Mable it was sometimes awhile before they returned. Bud
was left in charge and most of the time we would be taking a
nap when she left. One time we got to playing with a box of
matches on Pop’s bed and set it on fire. When mother got home
the wall and bed were pretty well in flames. Bud and I were in
the doorway. He was buttoning my coat.(We were in the
neighborhood of being 3 & 5 years old as Flossie hadn’t been
born yet.) She got water from the lake and put the fire out. We
had a constant reminder as there was a large wood clock on a
shelf above the bed and one end of the clock was charred.



We always had lots of snow and loved to pile it up and make
tunnels and snow houses. One winter Hazel, Bud, & I made a
snow cave and Bud crawled inside and was cleaning it out
when the whole thing caved in on him. We were frantic trying
to uncover him. Yelled for Mother and she came down the hill
and dug him out. Was I scared!!



One of our favorite things to do was to battle with Uncle
Clarence’s geese. That goose and gander came up the lake
every day and always got out of the water at our place. We
were told to stay up the steps where they couldn’t reach us but
we just knew we could get the best of them. We made plans to
stand back to back-one of us had a broom and the other a
clothes stick to beat these geese back to the lake. They went
back all right-each carrying a screaming kid by the seat of our
pants. Mother always rescued us before they got in the water.
Our back “cheeks” had an awful lot of big black spots but we
were already planning how we would get the upper hand and
win tomorrow. "

A FINE WEDDING..THE PICTURES

The top trio are my younger brother Phil, my sister (mother of

the groom) Cheryl, and er..me....

The next group are my niece and nephews. To the left is Paul the

groom, his younger(and taller) brother, Mike, and their sister

Sarah. To the right is Phil's boys P.J (in the blue jacket) and

Matt.

And finally, Paul and his bride, Jen!

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES

This the first in a series of posts which are my transcriptions
of 13 handwritten pages. They were written by my Aunt Dot
 (Dorothy West Bargar) and given to me yesterday when we attended
my nephew Paul's wedding.

Some explanations of the names mentioned: Phillip was
Phllip Jonathan West, Dot's grandfather and my great
grandfather. Hazel was her older sister and Flossie(Florence)
the youngest.

"Dingle" is a new term to me and sounds like a shed.


"Our family lived on Back Street in Upton from about 1830 to
1927. I have a picture of Bud and Hazel, taken Aug., 1926 that
was given me by Pop’s cousin Louie West (his dad was great
uncle Paul -Philip’s brother). This was the first I heard that I
ever lived in Upton. My birthday was in April of that year.


From conversations, I think I remember we probably moved
to Magalloway for a short time, then to Wilsons Mills. Phillip
stayed in Magalloway.


The first place I remember living was in a little square cabin on
the shore of Azichoos lake back a trail from the dam house.
There was a wagon trail past an old stone quarry and a foot
path along the lake shore. The quarry was home of the bear
that we always looked out for. The cabin was partitioned off in
one corner-a room big enough for a white iron double bed and a
built in double bed with a bunk (half size) up under the eaves.
There was a path between the beds wide enough for a dresser.
The remainder of the cabin was one L shaped room (except the
L was upside down & backwards) (end p.1)


The back door opened to a covered walk that led to a dingle
where we kept outdoor tools and dry wood for the fire. The
space from the door to the dingle was about the width of a
standard sidewalk. I have always remembered the dingle
because that is where the bag of toys that Santa brought was
kept. I only remember one Christmas that we received presents
and must have been when I was three because Flossie was not
yet in the family.


Don’t remember what Hazel& Mother got. Pop got a necktie,
Bud got pocket knife. (he would have been 5 years old) and I got
a pull toy -it was a green platform with red wheels & a red pull
string and had a white celluloid lamb on the platform. We also
got a tiddle wink game, which at my age was a great failure at,
but liked it anyway. That was probably 1929.


In years later we always decorated the house and had fun
making our decorations from newspapers and magazines. For
many years we had carefully saved the few fold out paper
Christmas bells and a few pieces of red & green rope that had
come with the family before any time that I recall."(end p 2)

LOTTIE BARKER AND HER SISTERS

These are the pictures I mentioned in my previous post that my

Aunt Dot gave to me at the wedding.

These are five of the daughters of Amos Hastings Barker and his

wife BetsyMoore(?). One, Lottie/Charlotte/Charlot Lovenia

is my great grandmother and the others my great grandaunts.

The aunts are posed together in the first picture:

Lelia Barker (Skinner?)
Mary Elizabeth Barker Mills
Melinda Jane "Lena" Barker Smith
Hannah Eldorah"Dora" Barker (1)Wyman (2)Brown

And the second picture is of Lottie and her housekeeper who

has her broom in hand. Lottoe married her cousin Frank and

their daughter Cora married my grandfather. Looking at the

Barker women I can see much that my grandmother's own

features.

What really pleases me is that I was able to send copies of

these off to the Barker cousin who I only "met" just last week

and who had given me so much helpful information!

A FINE WEDDING

My nephew Paul was married today and it was a nice wedding.
He was handsome and his bride Jen was radiant and they are
both such good young people.


Man, does that ever make me feel old, looking at that.


I rode down to the reception with my brother and his two sons
and along the way I explained about the family tree. By the
time I was done, my youngest nephew Matt complained his head
hurt!


There was a little mixup with the table seatings but we ended up
where we were supposed to be with a table with my two aunts.
Aunt Emily from my mother’s side came with her daughter
Winnie and Winnie’s husband David. From my father’s side there
was his sister, my Aunt Dorothy, and cousin Louise her daughter.
My mom’s friend Joe B. who was as close as a grandfather to
Cheryl’s kids was also there with us along with the minister who
had performed the ceremony.




I’d brought along photocopies of my Grandfather West’s WWI
draft card and John Ames’ Revolutionary War pension files for
Aunt Dot. I also brought copies of great Grandfather White’s
WWI draft card, the cards for the McFarland brothers, some
census pages and other information on that side of the family
for Emily and Winnie.



And it turned out Aunt Dot had the same idea. She brought a
folder with pictures of Grandfather and Great Grandfather West
and pictures of Great Grandmother Lottie Barker and her four
sisters. There was also a copy of Grandfather West’s WWI
discharge papers from the Army and a copy of a certified abstract
of the marriage of Arvilla Ames' and John C (Cutter) West’s
marriage record.


But the best of all are the thirteen handwritten pages entitled
“Memories” that are Dot’s reminisces of her and Dad’s childhood
in Maine. I will be posting most of it here over the course of the
next week or so.



We had a good time talking about family history and genealogy.
I even learned a few new things about Grandfather White that I
hadn’t known concerning the reason Aggie divorced him.

I guess the minister learned more about our family than he
expected!

All in all, a beautiful day.

The sun shone on us all.

JOHN AMES IN CAMBRIDGE

So far, I’ve had no success in discovering the identity of Andrew
Bowman or the location of his house where John Ames and other
colonial soldiers were quartered in Cambridge during the siege of
Boston. But as to the claim of frequently seeing Generals Lee,
Putnam and Washington during the period, it’s more than likely
John did. Both Israel Putnam and George Washington frequently
rode about the different positions of the colonial forces to inspect
the troops and defenses, Putnam especially being know for his
speaking to and exhorting the troops. And the fact that Obadiah
Wetherell who testified in John’s behalf was an Orderly Sergeant
in Captain Lawrence’s company leads to the intriguing idea that
they knew each other because John Ames was an orderly,
although again there is no proof so far and in all likelihood John
was just a private and regular soldier.



Lawrence’s company was involved in two notable engagements
during the siege of Boston. One was the “Battle of Bunker
(Breed’s)Hill" in which some of Lawrence’s men fought, and the
other the raid on Noddle’s Island. If John had been present at
Bunker Hill I’m convinced he or his heirs would have made
mention of it the pension request. Bunker Hill was even more
famous than Concord or Lexington.


Noddle’s Island, however, was one of two islands(Hogg Island
was the other) raided to drive off livestock and deny the British
hay for their horses. The raid turned into a small battle. So it’s
possible John might have participated in the fight ….if he’d been
in Asa Lawrence’s Company.


But he wasn’t. He was in Oliver Parker’s and John missed being
part of those actions.



By this time John had briefly returned home and then enlisted in
the new Continental Army. Apparently the militia companies
enlisted together as units and Col. Parker’s nine companies
comprised the 10th Massachusetts Regiment.

The petition about the issue of wishing to serve under Capt
Lawrence instead (as the militamen claimed had been promised)
of under Oliver Parker might have been more of a testimony of
Lawrence’s popularity with his men than a rejection of Parker. It
seems there were other incidents similar to this, even ones where
groups of soldiers and officers sent statements to the new colonial
government expressing their satisfaction with their present
commanders or requests to be returned to serving a previous one.
I suspect Washington’s comment about letting the men choose
their own captains reflects his disenchantment with the
minutemen that David McCullough detailed in his book 1776.


It wasn’t until August of 1775 that John rejoined Asa Lawrence’s
Company. He served out his enlistment time until the “six weeks
men" arrived. Tim Abbott’s earlier comment about what the term
“six weeks men” meant is on the mark. While I haven’t found
anything specific about them in regards to Groton, other sources
do speak of how towns would call up their militias as needed
before the Revolution to serve for designated periods including
six weeks and were compensated by the Town Councils for their
service.


In January,1776, John Ames left the Continental Army and went
home as many other minutemen had or would do, much to
General Washington’s chagrin.

And so ended John Ames’ brief career in the American Revolution!

JOHN AMES & LEXINGTON

I hit pay dirt at Googlebooks.


I used the keywords: Groton+history+Revolution and came
up with :

Groton During the Revolution: With an Appendix
by Samuel Abbott Green (1900)

I then ran a search in the book for “John Ames” and found
four references. The first was a practice of the times that I’d not
heard of before. It concerned something called Coat Rolls

As part of their service, many Massachusetts militiamen were
issued coats, preferably ones that had been made in their own
towns. Asa Lawrence’s men were among those entitled to such
coats and if they had died their family and heirs could claim the
coat in their place.

Samuel Abbot Green transcribed from the Massachusetts
Archives of his times the requests sent by the various units or
heirs in regards to their coats:

Cambridge October 30 ye 1775
To the Comity of Soplys Beples to Diluer to Asa Lawrence Capt
in Colonel Wm Prescuts Rigement Each a fusane [fustian] Coat
to which our names are under Subcribe. (p209)

John Ames is among those listed along with David Hason, a
Solomon Gilson, Obadiah Wetherell, & Eleazer Parker. Based on
this I assumed that I read “Saml Gibson’ for “Sol Gilson” among
the list of fellow soldiers given in his petition.

Fusane or fustian refers to the material used to make the coats.
The Wikipedia defines it as a general term for several heavy
woven cloths, made from different materials over the ages but
from what I can tell whatever the material, the common thread,
so to speak, was the durability and practicality of it.


No frippery for the Yankee militiamen but a practical, durable
coat!


Green drolly notes that ‘fortunately the men could fight better
than they spelled; and their personal prowess outweighed any
deficiencyin their early education” (p207)


On page 21 I found a "muster roll of Asa Lawrence’s Company
to the first of August, 1775" which includes John Ames, a
Solomon AND a Samuel Gilson, Jonathan Lewis, John Hason and
the others already named on the Coat Rolls. Under “Towns
whence they came” Groton is listed for John, his time of
enlistment April 25, and 98 days listed under “Time of Service”



On page 23 is A return of Capt Asa Lawrences Company in Wm
Prescott Regiment. John Ames is listed as a private


On page 118 is a list of supplies issued to the militiamen gathered
at the Groton Meeting House on the morning of April 19th ,1775.
On the list is John Ames Jr given 20 bullets and 6 flints, and a
John Ames given 30 bullets and 2 flints.



And so armed and equipped Asa Lawrence and his men, including
John Ames, set off to Lexington. The trouble is, by the time they
got there the British were gone. John and his friends may have
been among those who harassed the Redcoats all the way back to
Boston from Concord and Lexington but they didn’t fight at the
Battle of Lexington as far as I can tell. The accounts I have found
had them getting there too late.


John Ames was 18 years old in 1775 and was nearly 75 in 1832.
Looking back, perhaps that pursuit of the British from Lexington
expanded into being there in the larger engagement.


Either way what I found was further evidence that he had indeed
been a militiaman from Groton.

But could he really have seen Lee, Putnam and Washington “many
times?”

ABOUT JOHN AMES

I've learned that genealogy is a process of searching for facts and
once they are found establishing the veracity of what you've
found.


So what have I learned so far from John Ames’s pension file?


Well, while I’d already known he was said to have been a veteran
of the Revolution I hadn’t known any details nor had any actual
proof that he was indeed a veteran. Now I did.


He claims to have been at Lexington and then Cambridge and to
have often seen legendary figures of the Revolution, namely
Generals Lee, Putnam and even George Washington himself. The
details of the file in that regard raised intriguing questions for me:

Was John Ames actually at Lexington as he claimed?


Did he participate in any other actions during the siege
of Boston?


Why did John and his comrades prefer to serve under
Asa Lawrence and not Oliver Parker?


What were “six weeks men?”


One of the witnesses, William Spaulding, testifies that he knew
John Ames from childhood and that when he “was a boy I went to
school with him at his fathers house in Groton.” If John’s father,
who was also named John Ames, was a school master, this is the
first I’d seen mention of that. Was this true?



Who were these people who’d given testimony? What happened to
John’s sons and daughters, other than my ancestor Jonathan
Phelps Ames?



Lastly, was there any other proof to back up John’s claim that
he’d fought in the Revolution other than statements given by two
friends? Yes, he’d been given a pension (posthumously) but
there’s that little skeptic in me.


So even as I was transcribing the file I was googling for answers.

JOHN AMES' PENSION PART6

Image 8 is a page handwritten in a firm bold hand. The
penmanship is excellent and a bit ornate. I have a suspicion
that this might have been actually an earlier page in the file
and that in my haste to mine all I could I may have dl it out
of order but then I realized this pertains to his heirs after
John's death:


" N 11.634
Application of heirs of
John Ames
for pension.

In: Ames served as a private
from Apl 1775 to Jan 10, 1776
at least 8 mps &10 days

in Parker and Lawrence’s
companies Prescotts Regt
Mass. Troops


Washington
O. Witherell his orderly Sgt.
and
Wm. Spaulding Esq. a pensioner
who served in same Regt.

Also Deps.(?)of
C. Holland Member of congress
&
Chs. Fuller Esq on file in
War Department No.11.634
Case prepared by Wm Allen Jr
Norridgewock
me”



Image 9 is the other side of the page and the
handwriting in image show through. The document
is entirely handwritten by a different clerk:


“State of Maine
Kennebec County, Js:
Supreme Judicial Court
October term A.D. 1833
Be it known that on this twelfth day of October
1833, it has been satisfactorily proved in open Court
before the Supreme Judicial Court of said State
holden(?) at Augusta, within & for said County,
that John Ames late of Canton in said State
was an applicant for a pension under the Act of
Congress of June 7th. 1832 and that he died at
Canton aforesaid on the Seventh day of April,
1833, that Lydia Ames, his widow, also died on the
fifteenth day of the same month of April and
that his only children & lawful heirs are
John Ames, Jonathan P. Ames, Ralph Ames his sons;
and Sally Fuller wife of Isaac Fuller; Betsey
Putnam wife of James Putnam & Polly Poland
wife of Sylvanus Poland, his daughters.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto
subscribed my name & affixed the
seal of said Court, this 12th day of
October, 1833
J.A. Chandler, Clerk of the Judicial
Courts, Kennebec
County “



Image 10 is the last image and shows two pages of a
notebook.

The left-hand page is another preprinted form with
handwritten entries. The preprinted parts are shown here
in boldface:
“31518
Revy INVALID
__________
File No. 31.518
John Ames
Pri Rev War
Act: June 7th 32
Index:-Vol. 2, Page 8
[Arrangement of 1870]

The next page is all handwritten.
“Mas 1796 sold pensioned
Azel Ames
161 Shawmut St
Chelsea Mass. “

I’m assuming that last translates out to “Massachusetts
1776 soldier pensioned”

But who was Azel Ames? A descendant who requested a
copy of the pension file?

SERENDIPITY

Does anyone else ever get a case of descendant’s guilt, a feeling
that while you’re pursuing leads on one group you are neglecting
another?


Well, I was feeling a bit of it the other night when I mentioned
Cora Barker(my grandmother) and Louise Almata Richardson,
my great great grandmother. I’ve been so lucky with my searches
on the Ames, Abbots and Ellinwood lines that I’ve spent more
time on them than the other two lines.

So I started googling for Nathaniel Barker and ended up at
Rootsweb’s World Connect where I found on a member's page
a Nathniel Barker on who was married to a Huldah Karsting.

Mine was married to a Huldah Hasting.

Figuring it was worth asking I sent an email to the website owner
listing Nathaniel with my information and it turns out our
Nathaniels look to be one and the same and I broke through a
brick wall. Not only that but it turns out there are several other
connections between this person’s line and mine.


I’m not going to go into all the details now but the reason I’m
bringing it up is that it reminded me again this afternoon as I
exchanged emails with this new-found cousin that if this were say,
15 or 20 years ago, before the age of home computers and the
internet, I might have eventually found the information but I’d
probably never have made the acquaintance of the person who
shares my ancestry.

And that’s the biggest effect computers have had on genealogy.
Instead of just solitary researchers who might belong to a local
genealogy society, we also now have a global network of people
who might belong to a genealogy society on the other side of the
continent and who are able to make use of the archives from
their home as well as being able to meet and share information
with people on the internet who share their ancestry.

I know, I know, I've said all this before I think.


But isn’t technology great?

JOHN AMES' PENSION PART5

A reminder that all spelling, abbreviations and punctuation is as
found on the document.

In that regard, it seems poor General Putnam 's name is written
as Putman for the second time in the file!


There are parts of the document that are preprinted forms. I've
put those parts in boldface.


Image 6 appears to be handwritten on the back of the next
page as the printing of a form is visible from the other side.

Center top is written: 11.634

The following is handwritten below:

“John Ames

April 20th 1833

Obj(?) 2(?). 3.5(?)

R(?)348
died 7 April 1833
Private 8 mos 10days

Letter 30 Sept 1833

John Ames, Jonathan P. Ames,
Ralph Ames, Sally
Fuller, Betsey Putnam &
Polly Poland, children of
the deceased.

William Allen Jr.
Norridgewock, Maine.”


Image 7 is the other side of the page from the one on
Image 6. It’s a preprinted form. At the top the figures
11.634 are once more handwritten in:

Brief in the case of John Ames
County of Oxford in the State of Maine
(Act 7th June, 1832)

1. Was the declaration made before a Court or Judge?
Court

2. If before a Judge, does it appear that the applicant
is disabled by bodily infirmity? (illegible two lines that might
be a y and s)

3. How old is he? 76.

4. State his service as directed in the form annexed.

At this point the form is divided into four columns
across the page. I can’t reproduce it in that form here
but here is the information under each heading as written in:

Period: In 1775

Years, Months, Days,: about 8 1/2 months
(having enlisted for 8 months.)

Rank As a: Private

Names of General and Field Officers under whom he
served.
Capt. Parker, Col. Prescott
Genls. Putman, Lee, and Washington.


5. In what battles was he engaged? Lexington

6. Where did he reside when he entered the service?
Groton, Massa.

7. Is his statement supported by living witnesses, by
documentary evidence, by incidental evidence, or by
the rolls? A Credible Witness who proves 8 months service.

8. Are the papers defective as to form or authentication?
and if so, in what respect? Correct

I certify that the foregoing statement and the answers agree
with the evidence in the case above.

F. Waugh examining clerk
March 12.1833

THE ABBOTTS OF ALBION

At times I stumble across things that are about people who might
be related to one of my ancestral lines. I've made a note of them
and twice now have lost those notes somehow or another.

So, just so I'll be able to find this again, I'll post this here. It's a
link to a story about a town called Albion in Central Maine and
makes mention of Abbotts who might be from my line.

Or may not.

But at least now I'll have the information where I can find it!

THE ELUSIVE JOHN C.

You might have noticed that many of my blog posts deal with
ancestors with surnames such as (E)Ames or Ellingwood/
Ellinwood/Ellenwood or Abbot(t) on my fathers side of the family
more than on my own surname of West. The reason is simple and
quite common among many genealogists: I have a brick wall.


The furthest back I can go in my direct West line is to John Cutter
West who is believed to have been born in Plymouth Ma. on 8 Oct
1802 but neither I or others before me doing the family genealogy
have been able to discover any record of his birth as of yet. This is
why I like to refer to him as the Elusive John C.


There are any number of reasons why this is the case. One is that
it was an error by the census taker; an incorrect date, birthplace,
or he misunderstood the information and the middle name was
not Cutter but something else. There was a Cottle family, for
example, that was involved with the Wests descended from the
line of Francis West of Duxbury, Ma. Another possibility is that he
was not born in the town Plymouth but in Plymouth County.


There are other ways that the information on the Elusive John C.
could be wrong and I'll explore them further in other posts.


John and his descendants for the most part don’t seem to have
been all that big on writing so I’ve not found anything written by
them. There’s not much else on them that I’ve been able to find
so far outside of something written about a man I believe to be
Jonathan Phelps West, my great great grandfather. But even as
frustrating as it might seem I was lucky enough to have material
to start with and even a picture. I think. That fellow up there at
the top right of the screen is supposedly the Elusive John C.
himself.


Of course the problem with having a name like West is that it’s
such a common name and any browser search on “John West”
yields a lot of hits. I just checked it on Google and I got 859,000
on just the name without adding other words to the search. “John
Cutter West” yields 9...mostly posts from this blog or queries I
sent to forums. “John C. West” gets 15,500 references.


Still, I keep looking for the Elusive John C. I’ve found a few things
here and there, and meanwhile I also research the families of
women the West men married: Arvilla Ames, Louisa Richardson,
Clara Ellingwood, and Cora Barker. Maybe I’ll stumble across a
lead on John C. while exploring those other leads but even if I
don’t I’m enjoying the hunt. I’m finding out fascinating things
about relatives I didn’t even know anything about before.


That’s the joy of genealogy